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Sister Miriam Stadulis says she ‘loved every minute’ of the 25 years she spent working with children at the McGlynn Learning Center.

WILKES-BARRE — After 25 years at the McGlynn Learning Center, Sister Miriam Stadulis said, “I miss the kids an awful lot. I loved every minute of it.”

Two years into retirement, she still runs into many of her former protegees and is pleased to learn what they are doing now.

“One is working at a Montessori school, another works for the city and is trying to get his commercial drivers license so he can be a truck driver. One young man works for an environmental company; another young girl works for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. She has a wonderful job.

“There are so many I can’t think of off the top of my head,” she said. “But I’m so happy for them. I believe firmly it was because of their daily involvement in the center that they’ve done so well.

The McGlynn Learning Center, an afterschool program that Stadulis established in 1988, is the beneficiary of a fund-raiser set for April 8 at Genetti’s. Stadulis and long-time volunteer Elizabeth Griesmer will both be honored during the event, which will celebrate the many hours of tutoring at-risk children have received at the McGlynn Learning Center’s two locations, in the Boulevard Townhomes and in Mineral Springs Village.

Thanks to donations and grants, Stadulis said, the program involves more than tutoring.

Youngsters from the McGlynn Learning Center have enjoyed field trips to parks and zoos, baseball games and swimming pools. Summer days for the children from the low-income housing projects are often devoted to reading and math in the morning, followed by an excursion in the afternoon.

“I loved taking them out of that environment,” Stadulis said, “to see there’s a bigger world out there.”

The center began in 1988, after Stadulis approached the Wilkes-Barre Housing Authority and asked for space. She received one unit at the Boulevard Townhomes, which filled so quickly with dozens of children that “They were doing homework in the stairwells.” Stadulis asked for a second unit, and the Housing Authority gave her a second, adjacent one.

The program soon expanded to Mineral Springs Village as well.

Two years after retiring from the McGlynn Center, Stadulis stays active volunteering with homeless women and children at the Catherine McAuley House in Plymouth and with elderly residents of the Mercy Center in Dallas. “I like to keep busy,” she said.